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Comment by elektor | Hacker News Reader

Harley and Lukas, this looks like a very promising start-up and especially timely for Rare Disease Week. Congrats on the launch!

My question to you: You've made a comparison of your service to 23andMe in your post, can you provide some similar insight as to why your service would be preferable to Dante Labs? They claim to provide a "Whole Genome Sequencing Full DNA Test (30X)" [1]

Thank you!

[1]https://us.dantelabs.com/collections/advanced-dna-tests/prod...

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Thanks so much for the comment! In order to offer this testing and give back a result report that can really be used by a doctor, it should be physician-ordered, processed in a CLIA-certified and ideally, a CAP-accredited lab, have the lab report signed out by a clinical lab director, and ideally (for ethical reasons) offer genetic counseling to patients. From the bioinformatics perspective, the bioinformatician should be trying to take in all of the medical information we know about the patient and apply this to the analysis. This is what we offer. In contrast, with Dante labs, you basically send them your sample and get back raw data and some very basic reports. If you bring these to a doctor, the recommendation might be to just get another genetic test via a lab that follows all of the procedures as stated above so a person may end up doing it twice if they go that route. Ours offers the complete end-to-end solution that you would get in the healthcare system while Dante labs is really just a way to access your raw DNA.

But do your results also allow a user/customer/patient to access their raw DNA, as well? And how much of the DNA is mapped?

Yes, we do allow users to access their raw DNA. We will make VCF, BAM, and FASTQ files available if requested. We map the entire exome at 100x coverage which covers all genes.

Actually delivering results would make them extremely preferable. I've been waiting on Dante Labs since May of 2019. After complaining to them later in the year about the lengthy delay, my status magically changed to 'sequencing started' and has been there for a few months now.

I have given up on ever getting results from Dante Labs, and I'm unsure if I would even trust the sequencing results either way. I recommend anybody else considering them do their own due diligence before making a purchase.

Out of curiosity, would they be preferable because of pricing or simply because it fits your needs better?

Just delivering anything at all would be preferable. Dante Labs still hasn't sequenced my DNA, and they've had my kit for almost a year.

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